Corporate forces taking aim at the RIAA shows that the RIAA's business model is failing, and no amount of lawsuits, subpoenas, and para-military crap is going to stop it.
Either the RIAA can join in and make money, or they can sit back and hopelessly try to defend an oppressive business model that has been rendered technologically obsolete.
It makes no difference in this case. Mac users make up, what, 2% of desktop users? Let's assume 5%. 95% control over the market might as well be 100%. Even of those Mac users, there's still IE, Office, etc--very few Mac boxes are MS-free.
If someone trashes your car and tells you "it's not COMPLETELY trashed" just because the rear bumper happens to be intact, are you going to take it seriously or look at them as if they're from Planet Zeebo?
United Linux is dead. Long live United Linux.
on
United Linux Dead
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· Score: 1
Well, it's a shame, but it was kinda stillborn to begin with. TurboLinux never went anywhere--it made a small splash, then died. Lindows (or whatever it'll be forced to change its name to) has had much more success.
I really doubt UL will be the last such effort; Linux development is so much of a cooperative/collaborative effort that new "ULs" will spring up. Certainly once SCO's dead.
(Hey! Maybe we should start a "dead pool" on when SCO finally dies/gets bought out.)
The interesting thing is the difficulty they have in the long-term business contracts and enterprise deployment. Because there, they actually have to compete. The desktop market they already have completely controlled, outside of Mac users.
I can easily see a day not too long in the future when MS starts to scale back their aggressiveness in the enterprise market and focuses on desktops. I think they'll always *keep* that enterprise line of business, but I'll bet they slow down the cash flow to it.
What's particularly troubling about this is not that they're looking to use RFID in their warehouses, but the way they're strong-arming their vendors to adopt it. Walmart has a lot of vendors; it stands to reason that if these vendors are forced to adopt RFID, its adoption at other businesses (grocery store chains, Kmarts, etc.) is only a matter of time.
Not that I shop at Walmart to begin with--I try to make a habit out of not shopping at places that sell crappy products, fire people for trying to organize unions, and force people to work unpaid overtime.
I disagree completely. Speed in and of itself is not a problem. A good biker who knows his bike in and out can take the twisties at speeds that would make my stomach churn.
It's the idiots who run out and grab a 200-mph rice burner right after they get their license and think they've got nothing left to learn about riding safely. It's the ones who weave through rush-hour traffic at 90 mph. It's the morons who don't change their riding style when the pavement's wet or icy. It's the idiots who take hairpin curves at 90 and wonder where the hell that car came from.
In every one of those cases, "excessive speed" would be listed as a major factor by the cops, but it's not. That's great for paperwork, but it doesn't tell the story. Speed is not the problem. Riding too fast for conditions and not knowing your bike are what kills.
That, and as the poster above said, alcohol or drugs. People who drink and ride are a Darwin award waiting to happen. I made the mistake of doing this once. Luckily, I got home ok, but nothing scares the living hell out of you like falling asleep at 65 mph. It remains the dumbest thing I've ever done.
Of course, he said "DVDs from Netflix," not "buying DVDs." Netflix costs what, $20 a month or so? And you can rent as many as you want, no late fees. For those of us near Netflix distribution centers, we get pretty decent turnarounds. On the whole, I'd agree--Netflix is better bang for your buck.
Not "were" unpopular. His presidency is *(currently* unpopular. At the time, he was very popular. I used the present tense for a reason. For better or for worse, Clinton isn't that popular right now. He pissed off the right, well, by being a Democrat. He pissed off the left by attacking welfare, affirmative action, signing the DOMA, and bombing the aspirin factory to distract from the activities of Littly Billy.
Now, I know Clinton had a crummy taste in women. Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Hillary, etc. And I know his term as President is incredibly unpopular both on the right and the left.
But can we at least show Clinton a modicrum of respect as a male member of the human species and assume he has just a wee bit more taste than to do the bedspring ballet with Barbra Streisand?
I'm not sure what the issue is here. Nobody's being forced to use such software; the distributors aren't being required to support it.
Network TV routinely takes movies and chops out sex, "foul" language, and even the occasional violence. What's wrong with letting parents do the same?
Not that I'd do it...Hell, if you take out the violence, sex, and language, what have you got? A "romantic comedy." Or one of those obnoxious "period pieces" about rich 18th-century English people.
In fact, that's not necessarily true. The whole "martyr" thing is a translation bit; the word in Arabic is shahid, and is used for anyone who dies committing an act of violence (it's most commonly used for those who die in battle; like most languages, there is no substantial linguistic difference between terrorism and warfare). English has no word for this; it's translated as "martyr," but shahid doesn't carry the moral/philosophical/dying-for-a-noble-cause tone that "martyr" does. It's not a mistranslation--I call it a "quasitranslation," because it's neither correct nor incorrect, really.
Arabs I've talked to who don't speak English wonder why the West is so infuriated by the use of the word--in Arabic, shahid describes someone who dies blowing up a busful of people just as much as "veteran" describes someone who fought during WWII. There's no moral component, no implication that it was a noble or heroic death--it was simply a violent death. In fact, the Arab world's equivalent of Memorial Day is Yawm Al-Shahid--aka Martyr's Day.
Check out http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-youngearth.html and http://climchange.cr.usgs.gov/info/lacs/radiocarbo n.htm for a good understanding of how C-14 dating works.
Carbon dating is useless on living organisms; the whole point is measuring the carbon decay *after* death (when the organism stops ingesting carbon).
In any event, C-14 dating is only used to about 50,000 years before present, so chances are another method was used.
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Corporate forces taking aim at the RIAA shows that the RIAA's business model is failing, and no amount of lawsuits, subpoenas, and para-military crap is going to stop it.
Either the RIAA can join in and make money, or they can sit back and hopelessly try to defend an oppressive business model that has been rendered technologically obsolete.
It makes no difference in this case. Mac users make up, what, 2% of desktop users? Let's assume 5%. 95% control over the market might as well be 100%. Even of those Mac users, there's still IE, Office, etc--very few Mac boxes are MS-free.
If someone trashes your car and tells you "it's not COMPLETELY trashed" just because the rear bumper happens to be intact, are you going to take it seriously or look at them as if they're from Planet Zeebo?
Well, it's a shame, but it was kinda stillborn to begin with. TurboLinux never went anywhere--it made a small splash, then died. Lindows (or whatever it'll be forced to change its name to) has had much more success.
I really doubt UL will be the last such effort; Linux development is so much of a cooperative/collaborative effort that new "ULs" will spring up. Certainly once SCO's dead.
(Hey! Maybe we should start a "dead pool" on when SCO finally dies/gets bought out.)
The interesting thing is the difficulty they have in the long-term business contracts and enterprise deployment. Because there, they actually have to compete. The desktop market they already have completely controlled, outside of Mac users.
I can easily see a day not too long in the future when MS starts to scale back their aggressiveness in the enterprise market and focuses on desktops. I think they'll always *keep* that enterprise line of business, but I'll bet they slow down the cash flow to it.
"Holy sweltering penguins! Someone's using Windows!"
"To the Geekmobile!"
What's particularly troubling about this is not that they're looking to use RFID in their warehouses, but the way they're strong-arming their vendors to adopt it. Walmart has a lot of vendors; it stands to reason that if these vendors are forced to adopt RFID, its adoption at other businesses (grocery store chains, Kmarts, etc.) is only a matter of time.
Not that I shop at Walmart to begin with--I try to make a habit out of not shopping at places that sell crappy products, fire people for trying to organize unions, and force people to work unpaid overtime.
I code perl for joy
Its data crunching is bliss
Long Live Larry Wall
I disagree completely. Speed in and of itself is not a problem. A good biker who knows his bike in and out can take the twisties at speeds that would make my stomach churn.
It's the idiots who run out and grab a 200-mph rice burner right after they get their license and think they've got nothing left to learn about riding safely. It's the ones who weave through rush-hour traffic at 90 mph. It's the morons who don't change their riding style when the pavement's wet or icy. It's the idiots who take hairpin curves at 90 and wonder where the hell that car came from.
In every one of those cases, "excessive speed" would be listed as a major factor by the cops, but it's not. That's great for paperwork, but it doesn't tell the story. Speed is not the problem. Riding too fast for conditions and not knowing your bike are what kills.
That, and as the poster above said, alcohol or drugs. People who drink and ride are a Darwin award waiting to happen. I made the mistake of doing this once. Luckily, I got home ok, but nothing scares the living hell out of you like falling asleep at 65 mph. It remains the dumbest thing I've ever done.
Yeah, but the thing is, if there's one thing a Republican-run government will be happy to compete with, it's the People's Republic of China. :)
The word for that is "cartel."
Of course, he said "DVDs from Netflix," not "buying DVDs." Netflix costs what, $20 a month or so? And you can rent as many as you want, no late fees. For those of us near Netflix distribution centers, we get pretty decent turnarounds. On the whole, I'd agree--Netflix is better bang for your buck.
Who says this is an "either/or?" Hell, you can do something and bitch about it at the same time.
The difference between "building awareness" and "complaining" is often in the eye of the beholder.
Not "were" unpopular. His presidency is *(currently* unpopular. At the time, he was very popular. I used the present tense for a reason. For better or for worse, Clinton isn't that popular right now. He pissed off the right, well, by being a Democrat. He pissed off the left by attacking welfare, affirmative action, signing the DOMA, and bombing the aspirin factory to distract from the activities of Littly Billy.
Now, I know Clinton had a crummy taste in women. Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Hillary, etc. And I know his term as President is incredibly unpopular both on the right and the left.
But can we at least show Clinton a modicrum of respect as a male member of the human species and assume he has just a wee bit more taste than to do the bedspring ballet with Barbra Streisand?
you're absolutely insane. If anything, these are to better help smart bombs attack people.
Dude, it's *Microsoft*. There's no way in *hell* this will help the "smart bombs" do anything except get waaay dumber.
I'm not sure what the issue is here. Nobody's being forced to use such software; the distributors aren't being required to support it.
Network TV routinely takes movies and chops out sex, "foul" language, and even the occasional violence. What's wrong with letting parents do the same?
Not that I'd do it...Hell, if you take out the violence, sex, and language, what have you got? A "romantic comedy." Or one of those obnoxious "period pieces" about rich 18th-century English people.
In fact, that's not necessarily true. The whole "martyr" thing is a translation bit; the word in Arabic is shahid, and is used for anyone who dies committing an act of violence (it's most commonly used for those who die in battle; like most languages, there is no substantial linguistic difference between terrorism and warfare). English has no word for this; it's translated as "martyr," but shahid doesn't carry the moral/philosophical/dying-for-a-noble-cause tone that "martyr" does. It's not a mistranslation--I call it a "quasitranslation," because it's neither correct nor incorrect, really.
Arabs I've talked to who don't speak English wonder why the West is so infuriated by the use of the word--in Arabic, shahid describes someone who dies blowing up a busful of people just as much as "veteran" describes someone who fought during WWII. There's no moral component, no implication that it was a noble or heroic death--it was simply a violent death. In fact, the Arab world's equivalent of Memorial Day is Yawm Al-Shahid--aka Martyr's Day.
...And many don't, mainly because of the large genetic dissimilarities.
http://www.psu.edu/ur/NEWS/news/Neandertal.html
Check out http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-youngearth .html and http://climchange.cr.usgs.gov/info/lacs/radiocarbo n.htm for a good understanding of how C-14 dating works.
Carbon dating is useless on living organisms; the whole point is measuring the carbon decay *after* death (when the organism stops ingesting carbon).
In any event, C-14 dating is only used to about 50,000 years before present, so chances are another method was used.
Hrmm...For some inexplicable reason, I have a lot of trouble picturing a pack of chihuahuas.
Nonono...Richard Gere uses *gerbils*, not mice.
(Disclaimer for the humor impaired: Yes, I *know* the Gere thing is an urban legend, but it's funny, dammit.)
Pat--You da man. Hands down.
:)
Slackware was my first, and remains my only.
Might want to double-check that, especially this one:
David Souter: appointed by Clinton, 1990
Clinton was elected in 1992, took office in 1993. The Prez in 1990 was George HW Bush.
Why worry? All you have to do is catch a ride from a Vogon Constructor Fleet ship.
Though, of course, this is Microsoft we're talking about, king of the "New Major Security Hole Discovered" PR philosophy.
The only servers they have are Really Insecure, Fairly Insecure, and "You want an FTP login with that?"